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overengineering: product-code lane — apply the scrutiny method to code-level overengineering in application code #2897

Description

@kyle-sexton

Deferred lane from the overengineering-detection-skill interview (Brief: docs/topics/overengineering-detection-skill/PLAN.md, Q1/Q11).

V1 of the planned overengineering plugin scopes to the enforcement surface (Claude Code hooks/guards/instructions/component clutter, git hooks, CI/CD checks, branch protections, GitHub apps, external integrations). A second lane — code-level overengineering in product code (speculative abstraction, unearned indirection, premature generality) — was judged valuable but explicitly deferred.

The core scrutiny method (evidence → intent reconstruction → rediscovery with a simpler/native bias → cost-weighed verdict) is being written lane-reusable at the plugin level so this lane can reuse it rather than fork it.

Scope for this follow-up:

  • Define the product-code lane's surface walker and evidence sources (git churn, defect history, coverage overlap with existing owners).
  • Draw the boundary against existing owners so this lane integrates rather than duplicates: architecture:improve (module-level friction), code-tidying (safe structural tidyings), /simplify (diff-scoped cleanup).
  • Decide whether it ships as a third skill in the overengineering plugin or an argument-selected lane of overengineering:audit.

Blocked until the V1 enforcement-surface lane ships and the shared method doc stabilizes.

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